NFTs ride into Indian art through Gobardhan Ash works

The Prinseps auction of January 14 has truly pushed Gobardhan Ash centre stage, a place where he rightly deserved to be. Hailing from Bengal where he was born in 1907, Ash studied at two important art colleges of his time — the Government College of Art, Calcutta, and the Government School of Arts and Crafts, Madras, when the country was in a state of great flux with the freedom movement rising to a crescendo and talk of independence rending the air

The Prinseps auction presented works with which Ash had participated in a joint exhibition of the Calcutta Group and the Progressive Artists' Group of Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1950, widely considered a landmark exhibition in the history of modern Indian art. Hopefully, the Prinseps auction will trigger an abiding and long-lasting interest in the works of this important Calcutta Group artist, with or without the NFTs

On January 14, the Prinseps auction house conducted India's first NFT sale in the visual arts. Titled "Gobardhan Ash Avatars", the auction was held online, comprising 35 works on paper by the Bengal artist Gobardhan Ash (1907-1996), each physical work accompanied by an NFT alongside minted on the Ethereum blockchain.

As per the results of the auction, it seemed to have been a success as all the lots on offer were sold, both the physical ones and their respective NFTs. The sale, in fact, achieved more than the success in numbers for the auction house. With the arrival of the trading instrument of NFT or non-fungible tokens in Indian art, it marked a new beginning in the world of art auctions in the country.

NFTs in Art

The NFTs in art is a relatively new phenomenon that originated in the West a few years ago; it was only a matter of time before it arrived in India. While it's longevity as a trading instrument in the art market — both in India and abroad — will become clearer over a period of time, what must be highlighted is its very different dynamic in India compared to the West. It's a point I will come back to later.

First, one must understand that the very premise of NFT rests on clear understanding of the intellectual property right over a work of art, which is a highly nebulous territory in India, especially when involving digital art or a digital copy of a work — the focus of NFT.

To make sense of all of the above, one needs a clear understanding of NFT in the first place.

An NFT or non-fungible token is a unique trading commodity in art as non-fungible means 'unique', something which cannot be replaced by just another thing. When you buy or sell a Gobardhan Ash work of art as an NFT, you are trading in a unique commodity as it cannot be replaced by any other work of Ash or by any other artist. It can be minted, recorded or traded on blockchain technology platforms that enables easy identification of the owner of a specific artwork.

However, buying an NFT of a physical work of art is akin to buying a print of the original work as the copyright and reproduction rights remain with the owner of the original work — that could be the artist himself or anybody else who owns that work of art.

Even a signed print of an MF Husain work sells for much less than an oil/ acrylic/ watercolour by him.

The value, therefore, of the physical work and its NFT will be vastly different, for obvious reasons. At the "Gobardhan Ash Avatars" auction, the physical works were all priced between Rs 30,000 and Rs 50,000, while their corresponding NFTs were estimated between Rs 1,000 and Rs 25,000.

As for the results, the maximum price achieved by physical works was Rs 1 lakh (fetched by two works), while the highest achieved by an NFT was Rs 35,000 by one work. The prices achieved also indicated the confidence of the collectors while putting their money on physical works and NFTs respectively.

The game changes when the NFT is an original digital work, with no physical corresponding copy — like a video, a piece of music, etc. Its value, therefore, would be much more than that of an NFT of an original physical work.

However, most of this remains on the periphery in Indian art market — at least now and for some time to come — because digital art itself in India is at a very nascent stage with not enough practitioners, and fewer still buyers.

Moreover, Indian art market by its nature is conservative, with the biggest buyers continuing to make traditional, time-tested choices, especially when they dig deep in their pockets for big ticket purchases. There are just a handful of artists who continue to command the bulk of the market — VS Gaitonde, SH Raza, FN Souza, Tyeb Mehta, MF Husain, Amrita Sher-Gil and Raja Ravi Varma among them.

So, while the Prinseps auction has generated a lot of interest among new-age collectors especially, one would have to allow the market to evolve and deliver its verdict if the NFTs in art are a passing fad or here to stay.

Whatever happens next, the art world will remain thankful to this NFT discussion for bringing focus on an Indian master — Gobardhan Ash — through this auction, who has remained on its margins all these years.

Who is Gobardhan Ash?

The Prinseps auction of January 14 has truly pushed Gobardhan Ash centre stage, a place where he rightly deserved to be. Hailing from Bengal where he was born in 1907, Ash studied at two important art colleges of his time — the Government College of Art, Calcutta, and the Government School of Arts and Crafts, Madras, when the country was in a state of great flux with the freedom movement rising to a crescendo and talk of independence rending the air.

While Calcutta, being the British India's capital for long, was the centre of all colonial and nationalistic activities, including art, the Madras College was headed towards a great period of effervescence of nationalist art.

The exposure at two great art institutions of the time helped Ash develop a personal, individuated vocabulary that rejected western canons of art and celebrated an Indian idiom.

When back in Calcutta (now Kolkata) after the completion of his education in Madras (now Chennai), Ash — a prolific artist — became an active member of the busy art scene of the city; he joined the seminal Calcutta Group in 1950 even though he was an introverted personality who would rather be a recluse.

He made landscapes and portraits initially though some of his most distinctive works are a homage to the common, toiling Indian.

The subject was in keeping with the trend of the time as no artist could remain untouched by the overarching contemporary socio-political concerns; the most devastating remains the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 in which millions of people died of hunger as a result of government apathy, an event which was treated with deserving indignation by several artists of the time in their works.

The Prinseps auction presented works with which Ash had participated in a joint exhibition of the Calcutta Group and the Progressive Artists' Group of Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1950, widely considered a landmark exhibition in the history of modern Indian art.

Hopefully, the Prinseps auction will trigger an abiding and long-lasting interest in the works of this important Calcutta Group artist, with or without the NFTs.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based editor, writer and arts consultant. She blogs at www.archanakhareghose.com)